watanabe is a hack. champloo proves it. well, champloo sort of proves it. champloo and bebop are both higher quality than a whole lot of shit, but the recycling is shameful. even gainax doesn't recycle that hard.

champloo is like seasons 7-9 of the x-files. it shouldn't have the power to cast the quality that came before it in a negative light, but it does so anyway. i was so excited for champloo since the moment news of its production broke in america. "how could it be bad?" i wondered. as my anticipation mounted, i willfully lowered expectations since i didn't want to dislike it for not being bebop. THEN IT TURNED OUT TO BE BEBOP, BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

>>10015475
Oh come on, I shed manly tears at that scene. Both of them were stuffing their faces to keep from showing how broken up they were. Manly men don't cry in front of other manly men. That's why Spike waited until after he killed Vicious to cry

>>10015349
Cowboy Bebop was very popular in Japan, and has demonstrated almost as much staying power as Evangelion. It's been released on DVD there three times now and still makes top 10 lists from various publications... almost no other shows from the 90s have managed that.

However, it just wasn't the revolutionary break-through series that it was in the States. At least not in the same way.

I just realized I never watched the last two episodes. I remember trying to dvr them back in '02, but stuff kept happening causing me to miss it. I think now it's a way of denying that it's over. Those two unwatched episodes means there's always more Cowboy Bebop out there for me.

Well, Cowboy Bebop actually had a lot of Hong Kong action film references, stuff like A Better Tomorrow II and The Killer, which are popular all over Asia, and have influenced a lot of people in the anime industry.

poster of "pig disgusting" post here. all america-bashing aside, bebop has a strong story, interesting, well-delineated characters, intelligent humor, great animation, great action, etc. it has timeless aspects that transcend the references that it makes, or even the setting in which it takes place. it was bound to be at least moderately popular wherever it was released.

Watanabe will never be able to do better than Cowboy Bebop. His style, while radically different from most, is very easy to spot. His contributions to the Animatrix struck a cord with me right away, and I wasn't surprised when I looked it up and found his name.

I know how pretentious that sounds, but as a guy who takes his art as seriously as he does, Watanabe is probably wracking his brains trying to come up with something better. Samurai Champloo was great on it's own, but everyone who saw it just saw "Bebop-lite," and I think he's paralyzed trying to figure out how to one-up himself.

sorry, no, that is not an excuse for champloo. there is SOOOOO much repetition in that show, from the central 3 character dynamic to the verbatim repeated rocco episode, etc. that's just plain being a hack. he needs more ideas. if he's serious about his art, maybe he should try making a different anime next time, better or worse.

>>10015901
Yes, he ripped himself off a lot, and there is no excuse, but even with that, Samurai Champloo was a very decent production, which is more than can be said for the 99% of the waves of MOEBLOB that strike every season.

My point is though, that no matter what he does, it will always be compared to Cowboy Bebop.

my point is that if doesn't flagrantly rip himself off, the comparisons won't be as harsh. after champloo, i can't say i'd be remotely excited about seeing anything else he makes. sure it's better than moe, but it's not much different than most moe series; glossy, well-animated rehashes of the same shit.

Samurai Champloo was made by a totally different production company, that specifically hired Watenabe to help them make a Cowboy Bebop ripoff. So ZOMG THEY'RE ALWAYS HUNGRY AND CAN'T EAT LIEK IN BEBOP!!! GOLD!!! But little actual time was spent on things like, you know, the story; and while the direction in Champloo was great, it was the story that was lacking, a matter for which I entirely blame the producers, whose job it is to make sure things like this don't happen. Ever.

all bebop vs champloo or even "is bebop really that good?" flames aside, the endless repackaging of bebop is shameful. and i don't even mean it's shameful for being done... sure, make that money if you can. but at least track down directors, actors, etc and interview the hell out of them, or have multiple, subbed commentaries, etc.

repackage shit with a lot of content and i'll let you steal my money by selling me essentially the same thing. release "best of" dvds and you'll sell them to stupid faggots who would have just bought the initial dvds anyway.

>>10016025
Whut? Samurai Champloo had a LOT OF GREAT episodes. I can even mention a few that are as good as Cowboy Bebop was at ITS BEST.

The episode were Mugen learned to read. And the double episode with the blind woman are some of the best of Watanabe. And that's just three episodes. I'd say at least 5-6 were on par with the best from Bebop.

Champloo's only good episodes were the comedy ones. The reading one, and the baseball ones, they brought the lulz, and all was good. If the show had just been a straight up action/comedy, it might have been alright. But when it was trying to do something other than parody samurai swordfight flicks, it failed, and failed hard. The only serious ep. that came anywhere near close to being as good as a Bebop ep. was the one with that Chinese assassin guy who killed people with his chi . . . and even then, it wasn't as good as Bebop.

>>10016118
You forget that the serious episode with the woman who got forced to become a prostitute because of her husband's debt, the episodes with the blind woman, the episode with the thief who stole for his mother's sake and the episodes which were about Jin's and Mugen's past were fucking awesome.

You know what I'd hate, I'd hate to make a piece of work (Show, Art, Story, Poetry, etc.) so great that it overshadowed everything else I did. Honestly, you guys are expecting too much of the man. Just take the show for what it is.

if i re-edited bebop, but dubbed in the name "David" whenever someone says "Spike" and called it "Cowboy David", it would be a pretty good show if you considered it as a separate entity from bebop. get it?

you are an idiot. how exactly did anno destroy karekano, and where did you get the idea that it was anno's idea to run out of money for eva?

calling people who changed the face of anime hacks because you're some high-end action anime fanboi faggot is laughable. anno has consistently made new things (though all around similar themese), in multiple media. watanabe made a great anime, a short for the fucking matrix, and then the same damn anime as his popular one.

i think that applies a lot more to anno than watanabe. i haven't seen any evidence to suggest that watanabe has even tried to do something different than bebop, much less better. looks to me like he just wants to make some money so he can buy more weed.

in light of the "watanabe: is he a hack?" argument, notice what a stark contrast yoko kanno is to watanabe. her work in, say, escaflowne is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT than almost all of her work in bebop, yet both sets of music are brilliant. there's an artist.